


cross your sorry heart (and hope to die for me)

by ferryboatsandbowie



Series: manifest destiny [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mad Max: Fury Road, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Mentions of Pregnancy, Stillbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-04-05 21:31:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4195656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferryboatsandbowie/pseuds/ferryboatsandbowie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stage has been set. Let's kill some things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the cavalry

**Author's Note:**

> We’re entering spoiler territory, people! Read at your own discretion if you haven’t seen the film already. 
> 
> The title’s after Halsey’s Trouble which you can check out on the accompanying soundtrack.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The road to redemption is paved with salt and sand. So much fucking sand.

I.

She’s the Cavalry.

He names her like one of his Wives. Brands her, too. But that’s not what she was there for. Not anymore.

Now she works as Imperator. And she’s good, she’s the best.

Immortan Ward welcomes May for dinner. She watches him drink his beer, unfazed as he takes his mask off.

“Bring these to my Wives, will you?”

He doesn’t bother waiting for her to answer, deftly thrusting the flowers in her direction.

She takes her time walking over to the Vault, idly smelling the vase. They were beautiful, of course, but she doesn’t see the point.

II.

The purple and white hues clash violently against the harsh rusts of the Citadel.

When she reaches the Vault, she sets the vase on the ground to get at the vault. The floor is silent.

There they were on the other side, beautiful and waiting.

“Imperator May,” the smallest of them marvels.

“Your husband sent me.”

“Yes,” she finishes. “Thank you.” His tiny Wife takes them without hesitation.

Melinda’s through with her business, but a voice catches her attention.

“Imperator?”

It’s Mockingbird... His Barbara, standing strong as the currents of the Old World. She nods in understanding, because she does.

III.

May follows his first Wife into the Vault.

The bed chamber remains as sizable as she remembers, a bed for each girl. When the others don’t follow, she knows they’ll have their privacy.

“I was told you would be the one to ask,” she starts. “Off the books.”

“You need contraband?”

She breathes out a laugh. “Of sorts.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to get us out.”

She watches her carefully. “Have you thought this through?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve talked it over with your sisters?”

“Not yet.” She bites at her lip and sits on one of the beds.

IV.

“I’ve been planting the seeds.”

“And?”

“He’s sick and wrong,” she says firmly. “We’re tired and desperate.”

She nods solemnly. “I understand.” Because it’s true.

“Will you help us?”

May takes a cursory glance to the door of the Vault. “Give me a couple days. I’ll see what I can do.”

“And until then?” she says. “What do I tell my sisters?”

She rests her flesh hand over her shoulder, meeting her eyes. “Tell them they’re going home.”

“Thank you,” she breathes.

“You can thank me when we’re out of this. Yeah?”

She looks near tears, cradling her stomach. “Alright.”

V. 

The Imperator nods at the belly. “That going to be a problem?”

“Of course not,” she says.

“Good.”

She leaves without so much as a goodbye to any of them. It was almost too much to hope… The Green Place. The Many Mothers. _Home_.

A tempting enough offer to get back at the bastard who did this to her.

Liberating these Wives. These _women_. That was the mission. Protection, not vengeance.

Simple and clean, glorious as his Wives. Only they were so much more than words could say.

May only wishes someone could have protected her when she was young.

VI.

Five days.

It’s quite the feat securing everything for the day, but she manages well enough. She’s just that good.

She walks to the Bus. Beauty though she was, Melinda was always prepared to say goodbye to her ride, never sure who would be the first to go on the Road.

The Immortan blesses her name. She was the best of them. That’s why he’d never look twice as she smuggled human cargo right out from under him.

It serves him right, she thinks bitterly.

But this wasn’t the time for arrogance, not when they're barely even out the gate.

VII.

Calibrating the Bus, she set out on the open road with her eyes on the mirror. It wasn’t time yet. She thinks of the women hidden beneath the cargo hold. Just a little while longer, she’d tell them.

May goes off road like she has a thousand times before, and quick as a whip, one of the War Boys on her tail crawls up to meet her.

“Why we changing course? Not going to the Bullet Farm, Boss?”

“East,” she dismisses him. “Change of plans.”

“What’s out there?”

“Detour.”

He relays her message to the others. She’s beyond reasonable doubt.

VIII.

Of all the days for his bastard to be watching.

They drive for a while longer, making good time. May might have even called it smooth… Until she hears the base of the War Rig with Immortan Ward leading the charge.

They’re close. But she’s confident she can lose them.

The War Boy came back for her in floundering confusion. He clings to the side of the Bus, eyes darting from the parties to his Imperator.

“Why aren’t we stopping? What have you done?”

That’s when they hit a stroke of luck in the form of a sandstorm. How lovely.

IX.

May keeps driving, her eyes hard on the Road.

Revving the engine, she goes straight inside the storm. She knew Ward wouldn’t follow, not yet. That didn’t stop his War Boys from killing themselves, mouths shiny with broken promises of being received.

That’s not what concerned her... The elements. The air. The cars flying left and right. Not to mention the Blood Bag tailing her, barely inside his own ride. Those were cause for concern.

She hopes this isn’t too much of a culture shock for the Wives.

The point is that they’re out. And that’s exactly where they’ll stay. 

X.

She manages to evade him, losing their stragglers in the process. May drives and drives until there’s nothing. It’s a wasteland, to be sure, but at least no one’s getting struck by lightning.

May taps the cargo bed to let them know. “You can come out now. It’s safe.”

She watches the white cloth flow as each Wife leaves the Bus.

“Stay close, alright? Get those belts off while I check the Rig.”

“Yes.” Bird nods wearily. “We understand.”

“It’s so bright,” one says. “Has it always been this bright?”

“I don’t remember...”

That’s when this fucking fool shows up.


	2. the fool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'd waste all the water in the world drowning his demons... Idiot.

I.

He was a mercenary once. But that was a long time ago… Too many memories woven together with the past and the present. Too many dead things vying for his attention.

All he sees are their faces. Their voices calling out to him, calling his name.

Lance. Blood bag. _Fool_. Hunter.

He’d drown them all if they weren’t already dead. That would shut them up.

Maybe it was the blood loss driving him to madness. Maybe it’s the rest of the world. Maybe he’d always been this… thing.

The blood loss is decidedly not helpful. Nothing about this is helpful.

II.

Not the blood loss. Not the fucking harpoon he’d been hanging off of, hovering over car after car. Not the half-life War Boy he’s forced into carrying, and honestly, it was either take the kid or lose the limb.

Then there’s the gun… Faulty sand pistol.

That’s when he sees the Rig. She’s gorgeous and unmoving. War Boy was right, it was a lovely day.

Behind the Rig was a different sight. He counts six bodies and more water than he’s ever seen.

And they’re just… there. Cleaning up from the storm. There’s nothing to it, they’re just so… _light_.

III.

Six women, he realizes.

He knew from experience in the field never to underestimate people. Age or sex. Stature or disability… Doesn’t matter. These women range in color and size. Eleven arms. Twelve legs. One, visibly pregnant.

He’s never seen anyone this light before. They were either angels or sirens of the sea… Hunter couldn’t write them off just yet, not knowing a thing about them.

Who are they? _What_ are they? Why are they being hunted? Where are they going? Should he steal their ride instead of waiting around to die?

Not that he can ask… Fucking mouth guard.

IV.

He comes out from behind the Rig, faulty gun in hand, with the War Boy draped across his branded back.

The women startle, but Hunter’s not there for them. The man died a million times already and he would’ve gone out without having one last drink. He wants that drink. It’s all he saw…

He gestures for the pregnant one, blindly casting her as the unassuming Bride.

“Water,” he rasps from behind the cage.

She meets his eyes defiantly, passing off the hose. The Imperator looks on with fury in her stance.

He nearly drowns himself in the stuff. Water.

V.

Far behind the blonde stands a smaller girl with wild hair and wide eyes. “You,” he says shakily, his voice rough from disuse.

Hunter wants her cutters to get the War Boy out of his sight. She goes quietly, same as her sister, with her gaze fixed on the horizon. Her voice light in question. “Hey, Barbara...”

He keeps the gun trained on them both.

“Is that just the wind, or a malicious manifestation?”

She follows her gaze, eyes widening. He counts three war parties, fast approaching.

He gestures for the smaller of the two to finish the job quickly.

VI.

She tries and tries to snap the chain until he finally goes down by the hand of the older woman.

He was right to assume nothing about this crowd, the one armed lady has him pinned in seconds while the War Boy limply tossed about like a fish out of water.

The Wives evade the struggle, pulling on the chains that bound the stranger. But he fights anyways.

It’s all he knows in this world.

He fights to survive. Not to kill, just to live another day.

He gets the jump on her with a loaded pistol. A real one.

VII.

“We’re not going back,” she says resolutely.

His attentions return to the blonde, on her way to the Rig. He fires three warning shots, missing all but one. Damn slugger hit her in the leg.

He gets the jump on her, too. Buying time with the girl’s distracted pain, he lifts the Rig.

The women look on in mixed horror. He doesn’t even get that far… They eventually catch up with him. At the very least, he’s not a Blood Bag anymore.

“Kill switch,” the one armed woman explains. “This Bus won’t run without me.”

He considers this. “Just you.”

VIII.

She shakes her head. “Not without them.”

He sits back with his hands knit behind his head, callouses in his fingers grating against the cage.

He’ll wait.

The Immortan might even have the key. War Boy mentioned rewards… _Compensation_ … Well, they can start by leaving him the fuck alone.

“You’re relying on the loyalty of a man who has none,” she argues.

His thoughts are so loud over the other voices, he thinks she can hear him.

“Can’t imagine he’ll be happy you shot one of his Wives.”

He doesn’t care.

“You want that thing off your face?”

He’s listening.

IX.

She calibrates the Rig and he takes shotgun, quite literally. Pistol in hand, he directs the women to the backseat of the Bus.

“Of all the legs in the world, you had to shoot his favorite.”

Right. He forgot in the heat of it all.

He looks over at the girl. The woman. The heavily pregnant woman.

He shot her in the leg.

He watches as the other women tend to the wound. She doesn’t seem to be suffering any.

She’s there. _Alive_. She’s not another dead girl, stalking him for the rest of his days.

That’s something, at least.

X.

The War Boy never stood a chance against five liberated women and their Imperator victor.

“Then who killed the world,” she begs before they throw him from the Rig.

Demands, really.

He’ll live. He’s not dead yet... Nearly gone but the kid’s just sickly, he thinks. He’s not gonna cry over someone who drained him like a fucking leech.

Witness _that_ , War Boy.

Can’t be too good to have him out on the Road like that, he might just decide to go home to his master.

There’s no surprise when he does.

Nothing’s surprised him in this world, not yet.


	3. the wives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fire and Brimstone… Is that the world ending, or is it just you?

I.

Bird breathes through the worst of it with the memory fresh in her mind.

He held her at gunpoint. Threatened her sisters. Left them to rot in the sun… Left them to her husband’s _—_ to _Ward’s_ _—_ tender mercies.

“How does it feel?” May asks.

“It hurts.”

“Out here, everything hurts.”

She can’t even react. She knows it’s the truth.

“You wanna make it through this? Do as I say. Pick up everything you can and run.”

Jemma holds her hand, bringing her back. “Does it hurt terribly?”

“Just like home.”

“And the baby?”

“ _Sprog_ ,” Raina spits.

“She’s fine. Just fine.”

II.

Jemma fusses over Barbara, same as always.

She doesn’t hold back her scream when she’d been shot.

And when May tells them to run… Well, she was too busy holding Kara back to say.

Her Wife had just been shot in the leg. Her Wife. She wanted her on that leg. She needed her on that leg, and fast. There were so many after them now, all loyal to Ward.

“She’s fine. Just fine.”

She tries for a smile and fails. It’s all watery.

“Aren’t I supposed to be the one in tears?” she teases. “I’ve just been shot, Jem.”

III.

The last thing she does when she sees that bloody belt is spit on it… One grave to go.

Her smile doesn’t last, though. Raina’s seen this all before. She knows how this plays out.

In less than an hour, a piece of her soul will be gone.

Not gone, that’s the thing... She won’t be gone. She’s seen it enough times to understand.

Barbara will fall and Ward will scream. The rest is lost to her.

She’s _lost_. That almost makes it worse.

Raina stays beside her sister the entire time. It’s the only comfort she can offer now.

IV.

Skye’s seething. It’s too light. Too bright.

She expected blue. The sky is as white as the fabrics he dressed them in. Fucking clouds.

She wanted infinity. Stars. There’s still time, she shrugs. It’s just been so long since she’s seen it.

To top it off, Barbara got herself shot. She asks herself again… Of all the legs to shoot.

He’ll be furious when he sees... The things he’ll do to Blood Bag.

Skye throws the veil over her head. The heat is getting to her.

They’re never going back. If he wants her, he’ll have to kill her first.

V.

Kara takes off running for the war parties.

“ _Kara_ ,” Jemma screams. “Kara, stop!”

“He’ll forgive us... We have to go back! He has to forgive us!”

“There is no going back,” she cried.

Jemma holds her there and pulls her towards the Rig. She drags her kicking and screaming, the sand hot as she remembers.

She hated _this_. Never her _…_

Jemma who saved her life when she could have been with Bird and her broken wing. Bird who screamed who killed the world to the broken War Boy who never knew it had died.

Kara’s eyes well at the thought.

VI.

They have so many words now. We are not things. There is no going back. Who killed the world.

She knows it was him. It’s always been him… Her Warlord husband.

Grant Ward who killed the mother. The father and the son had been dead for years with nothing left but their holy ghosts… Her world dead in the sand.

He killed the world.

Kara’s sure this is what hatred feels like. That it could be so sad and all consuming… Maybe she even understands him now.

It doesn’t stop her heart from aching as bad as Bird’s bloody leg.

VII.

The Imperator keeps driving, never stopping. No one knows where she’s headed. Barbara might have, but it’s not like she told Skye… Not for a lack of trust, she was just so busy.

Busy with her baby. Busy with their husband. Busy with this suicide mission.

They’re going east. “I haven’t been this far out since I was a girl.”

Raina grumbles, “You’re still a girl, idiot.”

“Not as much of a girl as those babies…”

She smiles at that.

“How much farther?” Bird asks.

“Almost there,” May promises.

The girls relax a touch, never quite enough to look outside.

VIII.

They’ve reached the canyons. Raina can tell by the Imperator’s conversation with Hunter, her words and his grunts in reply even with the cage off.

“Get into the cargo hold. Stay out of sight.”

“I told them I’d come alone.”

“You may have to drive the Rig.”

“I yell Fool, you drive.”

The Wives return to their crawl space. All but Barbara. Hunter wants her up with him.

Raina doesn’t hate him. She just knows what she knows.

She knows he’s the one to drive the Rig when it happens. It’s a constant in her mind.

Dead. _Lost_. Broken. Abandoned.

IX.

Jemma holds them close in the cargo bed. Where Barbara was mother to all of the Wives, she excelled at playing second when the situation allowed.

It happened more often than not, near the end. Ward would come for her just in case she went into premature labor. She kissed her Wife goodbye. He stole her away. Then she was left comforting the others.

Kara cried for her. Skye and Raina bit back their concealed rage.

Now it’s the other way around.

Kara bares her teeth. Skye covers her ears with her hands. Raina’s eyes are wide with unshed tears.

X.

Barbara can feel the gun hovering over the scars on her face.

Her sisters are all she thinks of. She wants them safe.

She almost wants to ask if he has plans to join them, but he doesn’t seem capable of speech. He says things, sure, but she has to strain to make them out at all.

Her husband is a better conversationalist, she thinks bitterly.

The baby kicks violently against her at the thought… “ _No_.” She has to bite her lip to stay silent, it’s so painful.

That’s when she hears it: the war cry of an Imperator.

“ _FOOL!_ ”


	4. the fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And gravity will drag you into the ether. You’ll be so many things and nothing at all.

I.

The Fool’s a quicker study than she gives him credit for.

Punching in the sequence, he takes off with her Rig. May quickly finds her way back topside.

They close the pass before Ward’s party can make it through. It buys them time. Not enough to spare them the headache of the Buzzards, but they live long enough to see Immortan Ward gunning for them.

He has eyes on them with a bullet for the Cavalry.

He has her in his sights when Barbara opens her door, blocking the shot.

Jemma holds her Wife steady, their eyes burning into his.

II.

Browns on blues clashing like this, it’s fucking biblical.

“Mockingbird,” he rages. “That’s my property!”

His eyes flash on Bird with an emotion she doesn’t give herself permission to name.

Neither blinks. Neither breathes.

She holds her head high with such a quiet dignity, just as she had in her wedding bed.

Breaking away to check on the others, Fool smiles at her. Payment she thinks, for risking her life.

Raina maintains eye contact with tears streaming down her face. And then she loses it…  _Everything_.

Her footing. Her sisters. Her life.

She wakes in her husband’s arms, barely breathing.

III.

"Barbara!"

Grant Ward’s screams ring in the ears of his Wives. Each face in tears, crying to go back for their sister.

“We have to go back!”

“Did you see it?”

Fool nods solemnly. “She went under the wheels.”

May’s eyes flit to his, wide in shock, shining with unsaid feeling.

“We keep moving.”

And they did.

“Someone has to go out back… keep an eye out,” Fool stammers.

“I’ll do it,” she hears from the back. The second of his Wives. Now his first.

“I want you to stay together,” May says, exhausted.

“I’m fine.” _Liar_. “I’ll be fine.”

IV.

Jemma slips to the back of the Bus before allowing herself to cry.

This wasn’t happening. Barbara wasn’t dead. She can’t be, she was right there. She’d only just… let her go.

She let her go.

“My fault...”

She looks down, incredulous. All white with his mouth painted chrome.

He beats his head in shame.

“No! _No_ … Don’t do that.”

“The Immortan saw everything,” he cries. “He saw my Blood Bag driving the Rig that killed her. He witnessed me, himself. I was staring at the gates of Valhalla...”

She joins him on the floor, his head in her lap.

V.

Her soft touch circles around where his hairline would be while his tears stain the dress she wore.

It was a good trade. She thought so, anyways.

Certainly better than gasoline for safe passage.

“What’s your name?” she asks him.

“Fitz. My name’s... Fitz.” He looks at her with the wonderment of a small child. “Are you an angel?”

She frowns. “I’m a Wife. Jemma.”

“Jemma,” he echoes, his brogue softening around her name. “I’m sorry about your sister.”

“My sister.” She stops mid circle, looking out the window. “She wasn’t my sister. She was my Wife.”

“I’m so sorry.”

VI.

Night. The one thing she needed to see again… She doesn’t care anymore. Not about the sky. Not about any of it. If being Daisy meant she could keep her, she’d be his Daisy. She’d kill him like Jemma did.

She wants Barbara. She needs her like she needs water, like she needs air.

He’d good as killed her, himself. She thinks of how good it’ll feel to watch him bleed while counting their munitions supply. Very good, she imagines. 

She needs her songs. Without them, she’s stuck listening to Kara’s tears all night…

Not tonight, though. Tonight was Raina.

VII.

Raina couldn’t stop her, not in two thousand nights. How could she think this time would be different?

Her head aches from crying and visions and visions of crying. When the Rig stops, it’s a welcome distraction. It doesn’t matter who’s following.

She wants to see her husband one last time before he dies.

His death will be slow. _Intimate_. Justice would be done. And he’d know her words.

They are not things. They are not things. They are not things…

Barbara wouldn’t have died in vain.

If they have to sully their hands in the process, so be it.

VIII.

It’s pitch black out there, nearly blue. Under the cover of darkness, the Bus refuses to move.

May and Fool take what little explosives they have, placing them so they might run a stall. It works for a time until the Bullet Farmer’s on their asses. May blinds him, but he only comes back for more.

Jemma brings Fitz into the fold to help. He does his part even as bullets rain down on them.

“Don’t they know they’re shooting at us?” Kara roars.

“Get down!” May orders as she covers her.

Even in this desolate hellscape, she remains pure.

IX.

May had cheated death so many times she’s lost count. But it was the waiting for the Fool outside the Bus (against all odds on level ground) that might put her in the grave this time.

She doesn’t say anything when he returns, his face bloody and hands full of ammo.

“You’re bleeding.”

“Not his blood,” May tells her truthfully. He shrugs, not caring who knows.

Pointing towards the bucket by the Rig, he grunts. “What’s this?”

“Mother’s milk,” the third Wife acknowledges softly.

He washes his face with the stuff and everyone returns to the Bus.

Fool rides shotgun.

X.

They drive into the morning. Past the swampland. Past the desert.

Fitz remembers the Cavalry go on hope and redemption. With Jemma next to him, he wonders if he’s on the path of righteousness. More so now, anyways...

Ward’s never held the keys to Valhalla’s gates.

Brothers long gone and never witnessed.

Disillusionment is a beautiful thing.

The Immortan lies.

He calls these women treasures when they aren’t made of silver or gold. They’re flesh and blood. They live. They _die_.

Fitz has seen it with his own eyes, why can’t he?

He knows… It’s because he’s hopeless. Beyond redemption.


	5. the mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The things she’ll do for the life still inside her. The choices she’ll make for her family, already here.

I.

Pain.

When she wakes, it’s all she feels. She feels it all.

“Condition’s stable.”

“And my son?”

Barbara holds her breath. He’s going to kill her for this. The leg. The child. The Wives.

“Gone quiet.”

The cold compress is hot on her forehead and it’s nothing to do with the heat. He could fry an egg on her if he wanted to.

There’s still time. She can still save herself and get out of this alive. She’s not going back.

“Grant,” she rasps.

Ward’s eyes flash on her bedside. “Don’t.”

“The… the _baby_ , Grant,” she trembles. “She’s a girl.”

II.

Those eyes flash again. “Chroí?”

She swallows. And it hurts… Everything hurts out here, she reminds herself.

“Yes.”

He turns to the Mechanic. “Is she safe to travel?”

“Enough.”

“Enough?”

“She won’t die. She might even make it through this with the leg.”

“Anything else?”

He shrugs. “Few broken ribs. She’s damaged, but fixable”

“Good.”

“And the sprog?”

“Leave it,” he says coldly. “Just find my Wives.”

The Mechanic nods, waving a salute. “Boss.”

He looks to his Wife, daring her to object. His touch burns her cheek.

He’s so wrong about so many things and it doesn’t even matter.

III.

She is so young. But the hatred in her bones is old enough to start a war.

A little late for that, she thinks. Look at all she’s accomplished in a day.

He never leaves her side. His touch never leaves her skin. His voice, her head.

“We’re a family,” he says again. His words are poison, she knows. “What were you thinking?”

Ward doesn’t expect her to answer.

“We are not things,” she mutters.

“My Mockingbird...” He almost sounds wistful. “Defiant to the last.”

“That’s not my name.”

“You’re lucky your name isn’t on a stone in the ground.”

IV.

“At least I’d be away from you.”

If she braces herself for a slap, it never comes. He only ever lies there. Lies, lies, lies. It’s all he does.

“Tell me, did you get it out of her in the end?” she murmurs. “Did she tell you when you’d die?”

“That’s enough.”

“Tell me,” she all but shouts. Tears fall hot and angry, like poison flowing out of her.

As if he could deny her. His favorite Wife.

“No. She never did,” he says. “Chroí held that over me the whole time. I never wanted to know.”

“Well… I did.”

V.

He stills. “What?”

“I wanted to know. She told me on her wedding day.”

His jaw tightens a touch. “You’re lying. Chroí never shares her visions with anyone.”

She hurts too much to smile. “Did Raina tell you that?”

“Barbara,” he warns. “What are you doing?”

“I’m just trying to have an honest conversation for once.”

Bird stuns him into silence when she touches flesh.

“You have no dominion over us, over anyone. All that’s left to do is wait.”

“Wait for what?” He’s almost breathless. “What are you waiting for?”

Her expression turns delighted. “ _Husband_ … You’re going to die.”


	6. the place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home is a concept. Bait and switch.

I.

Another woman. This one’s in a cage strung high in the middle of the desert.

“That’s bait,” Hunter says pointedly.

The Imperator doesn’t seem convinced. Almost like she knows her.

She pulls the Rig into park before she leaves. He braces himself to ride again. They've established he’s capable. It’ll be her job to make sure the Brides stay seated. He can’t go through that twice.

No unnecessary deaths. That’s what she said, the one he’d shot… She said this to the Imperator right before they dumped the War Boy.

He wonders just how _necessary_ she would’ve deemed her own.

II.

“I am one of the Midgard, of the Many Mothers. My initiate mother was M.P. Carter… I am the daughter of Lian May. My clan was Providence.”

The woman in the sky stops screaming to give a signal by a different call, and in seconds they’re surrounded by friendlies. She quickly joins her on the ground, embracing the Imperator.

She’d told him that she was taken as a child, taken from her mother. She mentioned the Green Place.

These are her people, but this isn’t her home. Nothing about this vast waste is green.

Nothing but sand for days.

III.

“Is it really her?”

“She’s got her mother’s face.” An elder looks at her closely. “How long has it been?”

“Ten thousand nights. Maybe more.”

“Where is Lian?”

The Imperator looks as vulnerable as he’s ever seen her. “She died on the third.”

The women all raise their hands out of respect for her passing. He silently wonders if that helps the dead move on.

He wants to try, but there are too many deaths to count. Hunter would spend the rest of his life at it even if he started that second. There wasn’t enough time in the world.

IV.

Gently pulling the Brides into view, the women marvel at the sight of them.

“Where did you find these creatures?”

“They’re so soft _—_ ”

“Look at their teeth, there’s no lead!”

One of the Brides smiles at the compliment. Another reaches for an accessory and is playfully smacked.

“And the men?”

“They helped get us out,” May explains.

The women collectively nod in understanding. As if they could ever understand the weight that comes from losing a pregnant Warlord’s Wife under his Rig.

Her voice will likely haunt him well after the others have shut up.

Who killed the world…

V.

“I can’t wait for them to see it.”

“See what?”

“The Green Place,” she stresses. “ _Home_.”

“If you came from the west, you passed it.”

It dawns on a Bride. “That creepy place...”

“Where are the Many Mothers?”

“We’re all that’s left.”

They start, the loss written all over their faces.

“We needed to get out.” “The water was toxic... ” “Nothing would grow _—_ ”

She wouldn’t hear it. She couldn’t… Her mother was dead. Her home, long gone.

Imperator May walks on, shaking the mechanical prosthetic from her body.

She shatters. Raging at the sun, she falls to her knees.

VI.

The Green Place is dead. The Many Mothers are gone. She can’t even give a name to what Barbara is.

Jemma thinks she’d have felt it by now. It’s shock, she thinks. Denial.

But she can’t ignore the fact that her Wife is gone.

“ _Lost_ ,” Raina insists. When Jemma asks why, she explains that there’s a difference. Like love and lust.

“Because it hurts more,” she says plainly.

Out here, everything hurts. Those were May’s words.

She swears that there are as many words as there are people after them.

It’s not like it does her any good, remembering.

VII.

One of the elders... Carter, her name was… She shows Raina her seeds.

They were the most wonderful things she’d ever seen.

Take all the visions, everything that’s ever happened and ever will… Nothing will compare to the hope that Carter’s botany brings her.

“Soil’s mucked up to hell, but I do what I can.”

“They’re beautiful,” she whispers in awe.

“You think so?”

“Of course. Who doesn’t like flowers?”

Carter nods. “You get many like this back home?”

She knows meaning of the word. Of home. Shakes her head.

“No… Not where I’m from, no. Where I lived, yes.”

VIII.

It doesn’t matter that there are so few now. She’s happiest among the Mothers.

Kara finds herself at home with these women. They don’t treat her like an object. A thing.

Definitely not a baby. She wasn’t a baby. Never again. Kara was a woman, just like them.

She prays for the Green Place. That her husband will never find them. They’re precious, but not Precious.

She wonders if this is how Bird felt with their sisters. Protective. Vicious. Feral… She loves them enough to die for them. With them. By their side in whatever capacity. This felt like home.

IX.

Bird’s gone... But Raina prefers lost. Might as well pretty up a dirty thing.

It’s a bit like May’s arm.

Barbara is her missing limb. They might have cut her off and cauterized the wound, but she can take the pain as it comes. All she has to do is heal. Skye wants to be strong like May, but knows that if she told her this, she’d take a knee and say something awe-inspiring.

“You’re strong in the real way. You’ve been so brave for so long, so good.”

She wonders if her own mother would have cared as much.

X.

The sky is a blanket of night when she comes looking for him.

“Can I talk to you?”

She can do what she wants, he’s seen it himself. Hunter doesn’t see why she needs permission.

He nods anyways, making room.

“We’re heading out tomorrow.”

He waits.

“There’s a bike with your name on it. You can come with us if you want. The choice is yours.”

Like everything he’s witnessed of her liberation scheme, it’s harebrained at best. At worst, it’s a suicide mission.

No, he’ll think up a better plan faster and use the dead things during mock up.


	7. the seeds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Individual thought of the oppressed kills the harvest of the oppressor. It's anti-seed.

I.

Barbara gasps through the pain. It’s a rolling warmth threatening to boil over.

He offers his hand. She doesn’t take it. His touch devastates her more than anything else.

Out here, everything hurts.

At least he’s not pacing anymore.

“What can I do?”

She rolls her head back on the filmy cushion. “Throw yourself under a Rig.”

“But who would carry on my legacy?” he demands. “I don’t see any heirs.” His voice is soft as a lullaby and cuts her deep with a serrated blade.

“Were you this cruel to the others?”

“They never tried to run from me.”

II.

“Does it bother you how much they love me?” she hisses. “They do. More than they could ever love you.”

“Be quiet.” He pins her with a stare, his fingers ghosting across her skin. “Just breathe.”

She does, but not because he tells her to. She doesn’t want to talk to him for any longer than necessary. The thought of his company grates on her like the contractions inside of her body.

She misses her Wife. She should be with her.

He moves his touch lower, wrapping his hand around her fist. “I saw your words.”

“You were meant to.”

III.

“Why’d you say it?” he asks. “We belong to each other in equal measure.”

“People don’t belong to people.”

“That still the case when you take Precious to bed?”

Barbara holds her eyes shut and despite her better judgement, she lashes out. He catches her in time but she retaliates where she can. His wrist in her iron grip is as good a place as any.

“I hate you,” she snaps.

“I know.”

“Why won’t you leave?”

Clearing the sweat off her brow, he kisses at her knuckles. “Because until we find my Wives,” he muses. “I’m all you have.”

IV.

When the moment happens, she feels everything. The blood. The sweat. The tears.

The physical pain of the baby doesn’t even register, not until much later… It hits her like her cycle would, only more. So much more.

Barbara feels her leg and the memories behind the bullet hole. The burning sand beneath her feet as she ran for her life to the man who shot her.

She feels the harsh kick of the baby at the thought of her father. Such a fighter, same as her mother.

She feels the fall. She feels his arms. She feels his screams.

V.

Her daughter. _Hers_. She was as beautiful as Raina said she’d be, not that there was any doubt.

Barbara remembers her tears and wonders if she knew.

She has a fraction of a second alone with the baby before they take her, never knowing where.

When her husband returns with fresh linens, he makes the cot. He cleans her and dresses her. And when they go to sleep, he holds her as she cries. She cries for her sisters. For her Wife and child. She cries for the world.

She’s never been more alone and he’s never been more gentle.

VI.

When she wakes the next morning, she’s in his bed.

The sun is beating down on them through the window of his Rig, the only indication at all she wasn’t back at the Citadel.

Barbara finds Ward there, arms around her with his eyes closed. He looks so calm when he’s sleeping. She wonders if he’ll look the same in death.

It’s only when he puts the mask back on does she remember who she’s married. Not like she ever forgets, which is why she thinks about him dying so often. She and Jemma share dreams of poison and blades.

VII.

He’s at his most vulnerable with them and without, he’s inconsolable. It’s a weakness. She’s shocked no one’s tried to take them sooner.

“What are you going to do to them?”

“ _Do_?” His tone is as soft as his touch against her. “What makes you think I’ll do anything?”

“Because I know the man I married. The man buried deep inside.”

“I’m not going to do a thing. Not to them.”

“But you’ll kill everyone else,” she says. It’s not a question. She knows well enough what he’ll do.

“You didn’t really think they’d make it out alive, did you?”

VIII.

She wasn’t hurt. Hurt implies surprise and that’s something she could never afford around him.

She doesn’t bother trying to plead for their lives, his mind is made up. They’d make it through this. They had to.

May. Jemma. Raina. _Her_ sprog. Skye. Kara. The Green Place of one less mother... Even Fool.

“And me?” she demands. “You’d kill me?”

“Kill you?” He idly pulls her closer. “I’d sooner use you as bait.”

“Will you?”

“Of course.”

She nods. “Of course, he says.”

“You’ll be perfectly safe,” he promises. “Never in any real danger.”

“I’ll be with you, won’t I?”

IX.

She means for it to sound cutting. She has so many words, but they die instantly on her lips.

She’s so tired.

“Trying to steal my battle plans?”

Barbara shrugs, falling deeper in his arms. “Is this because of what I said?”

“You say many things, Bird.”

“About your death,” she explains. “Are you planning on using me as a human shield?”

“I told you, you’ll be fine.” He sounds as exhausted as she feels, but at least the seed’s been planted.

She changes the subject, knowing how his moods turn. “Back to Bird, are we?”

“Yeah. I’d appreciate it.”

X.

Compliance makes her sick.

The sound of his voice makes her want to vomit until it dawns on her how empty she is. There’s no Warlord parasite, no sprog, making her feel this way. It’s only ever been him.

She doesn’t want his war plans. His touch. His name. His bed.

What she wants is his bleeding heart in her hands, then they could talk about calling her Bird… She’d be a vulture for him, picking at his corpse in the hot desert sun.

For herself. For her sisters. For Jemma.

That’s how he dies. It won’t be long now.


	8. the fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stand tall. Feel all. From your vertebrae to the ground you’ll die on.

I.

The Bus has a limited supply of ammo on her own. But take Hartley’s bikes, Hand’s explosives, and Hill’s guns… they’re almost in business.

May promised Barbara she’d find a way.

Fool said something the night before. _Hope is a mistake_. She wonders if that’s true.

The Green Place is the Promised Land. The Promised Land is the Green Place.

To grow up with all that stuff in her veins to grow and watch her dreams to die in the sand… Well, that’s enough to drive anyone insane.

She doesn’t want Fool to show. Melinda refuses to hope for him.

II.

Blood Bag doesn’t go with them. He goes _after_ them. He stops the women, and Fitz, before they can get very far. Hopping off the bike he was given, he speaks only with the Cavalry.

“Look,” he sighs. “It’ll be a hard day… But I guarantee that a one hundred days ride that way, there’s nothing but salt.”

The Cavalry remains silent. Everyone does.

“At least that way we might be able to… _Together_. Come across some sort of redemption.”

She takes his hand with the promise of claiming the Citadel.

“Feels like hope.”

Fitz likes the sound of that.

III.

They drive fast. But then, the journey home is always faster.

 _Back_ , she chastises herself. Never home.

The Wives can never go home.

Carter rides shotgun next to May and she’s right where Raina can see her. Even as the sight of the seeds calm her, she still waves her hands in prayer.

Skye sits next to her. “What are you doing?”

“Praying.”

“To who?” she asks, incredulous.

Raina closes her eyes. “To anyone who’s listening.”

 _Skye_. Her sister, whose name holds the universe. The satellites and stories. The messages. The Gods.

She prays to Barbara they’ll make it through.

IV.

Jemma rides next to the War Boy. One more risk to put her closer to Barbara.

“We’ll be fine,” he tells her over and over. “You’ll be fine. I’m getting your sisters home.”

That’s exactly what she’s afraid of.

The best outcome she has is home. _Fine_. But what then?

Her Wife, gone. Her husband, dead. She probably won’t even be the one to kill him, assuming they make it out of this alive. Assuming he dies at all.

At worst, she’ll be his Wife again by morning, with Fitz as dead as Barbara… forever lost in the sandy wastes.

V.

“Here we go girls,” Carter says with a grin.

Jemma looks back at the War Rig on her word. Her blood runs cold at the sight.

“Raina?”

She sees it, too. “What is that?”

“You don’t know?” she asks, reaching for the binoculars.

“What do you see?”

She stills. “Wait.”

It’s her Wife.

“Jemma?”

It’s _her_. It’s Barbara.

“ _No_. That’s not possible.”

Memories of her bloody leg come flashing back. She watched her die. She couldn’t stop it. She’s _dead_.

“ _Jemma_ ,” Raina snaps.

“Barbara… She’s on the Rig,” she whispers. The words taste of poison on her tongue. “It’s Barbara.”

VI.

Ward has her tied to his car…

“I was inspired by your half life’s Blood Bag,” he explains.

Barbara isn’t as high up as a Polecat. He wanted her close enough to touch. To keep her _safe_ , he says.

“Not mine,” she argues, her senses dulled by the pain meds he has her on. “Never yours.”

He just shakes his head. “I could say the same for Precious, you know… Never. _Yours_.”

She only thrashes at the mention of her Wife.

“Mockingbird,” he warns, fingers soft on her pulse. “You’ll only make this worse.”

They drive fast, leading the charge.

VII.

They make it all of ten seconds before their plan goes to shit.

“Hill’s down!” someone shouts.

Kara doesn’t even hesitate. “I’ll go,” she says.

Skye shakes her head. “Kara, _no -_ ”

“I’m going,” she argues. “You want to stop me, or come with me?”

She shuts her eyes in silent prayer before handing her a rifle from their stash. “You know how to use one of these things?”

“I remember how.”

They move out, arms linked as they go.

She’s got a gun now. The feel of it… It’s _right_.

The weight on her arm. The smell of the fight.

VIII.

One man. One bullet. Again and again and again.

There are casualties on all sides. War Boy after Vuvalini after Imperator.

Jemma’s eyes never leave her Wife, even as Fitz leaves to help the effort.

Even as the side door is blown off.

Even as Carter gets a nail to the neck.

Even as the others scream for her to get _down_ …

She’s dragged high into the sky, kicking and screaming.

And before she knows what’s happening, she’s there with _him_ … Face pressed against the window just to taunt his rogue Imperator.

“Secure my Wife,” he says. “Get the others.”

IX.

May’s eyes twist shut from the pain. She screams when the blade goes through her. She screams when Jemma is taken. She screams for her fallen sisters. When she can’t scream anymore, her vision rages on with furious anger.

The Fool drives up beside them in his acquired car.

One less body to count. That’s something, at least.

Fitz crawls back in, having fixed the engine. Make that two bodies.

“I’m gonna need you to drive...”

He doesn’t question the order, he just nods.

She leaves the Bus after Jemma. Bloody, yes. Rusty, maybe. But never beaten.

She’s ending this.

X.

“What would you do?” he asks idly. “In exchange for their lives, what would you do?”

She tears her attentions from Barbara for only a moment. He’ll pay for that later.

“For you?” she questions. “Nothing.”

She’s sits as far from her husband as he’ll allow, her eyes never leaving her Wife again.

Jemma knows he wants her to ask, so she remains silent.

What’s he done to her Wife?

Where does this end? _When_?

How many more lives will satisfy a false god?

“You can’t save them all,” he says, as if reading her mind. “They’re dead by sundown.”

XI.

The girls are back inside the Bus as Raina tends to Carter.

“What’s happening?” Kara demands.

“She’s been hurt.” Fitz nods his head after Carter. “Polecat, same as May.”

“Where is she now?”

He points at the Immortan’s ride. “Getting Jemma back.”

Her eyes are wide on his Rig before looking on her sisters. “Is that Barbara?”

“That’s what Jemma says, anyways.” Raina curses his name, “Bastard.”

Watching May, Kara swallows. She’ll die before she even touches him.

She takes a breath, abandoning her jacket and gun.

“Kara?” Skye shouts. “Kara, _No!_ ”

They’re too late stopping her. She’s already gone.

XII.

Kara’s out of the Bus before they can do anything for her. Then she sees Ward’s second in command. She knows what she has to do.

She screams for him.

“Kebo!” she cries. “Help me!”

She looks the part, stripped of everything but her dress. It doesn’t take much convincing on her end. He does as he’s told and carries her over.

“Good girl,” he says quietly.

“ _Kara!_ ” Skye is still calling out to her by the time she’s safe on the Rig.

When his back is turned to collect the others, she makes her move to get May inside.

XIII.

She reaches for her. “Here! _Here_ ,” she urges.

May takes Kara’s hand and props herself up on the car. Then they hear it. The click of his gun against Jemma’s head. She can only watch her sister in wide eyed horror as his last man flies out after May.

 _No_. She evades the fight between them and slips inside.

Without even needing to turn, he knows. Ward sighs deep through his mask, “Baby.”

Jemma lunges as Kara fights him for the gun. There’s a struggle with two shots fired out the window.

It ends with their husband outmanned and outgunned.

XIV.

The dead pile around them, like car parts in a junkyard.

Hunter’s seen it all, from the end to the start.

A Bride resurrected. A War Boy realized. Seeds of rebellion… Actual, proper, seeds.

When he sees May fighting her last, he knows he’s got to get to her.

He’s seeing this through.

He takes on the big one… Gets himself cornered in before one of the Vuvalini shoots him in his oxygen tank. He doesn’t stop hitting him until he’s down.

It doesn’t matter how many he has to take care of. He’s not losing anymore of his own.

XV.

Jemma takes over driving. Ward’s in the back with Kara.

He spreads his hands wide. “ _Baby_ ,” he says softly. She only firms her hold on the gun. “You’re not gonna _—_ ”

Before he can speak another word, she shoots him in the stomach. Jemma tenses in her periphery.

“You were saying?”

He swears, hissing out a breath. “Kebo!”

“He’s not coming.”

“Then where’s my fucking Mechanic?”

“Don’t you get it?” Her eyes narrow on him. “No one’s coming for you.”

“Kara, stop!” Jemma cries from the front.

“Yeah, _Kara…_ Why don’t you stop?”

She shuts her eyes to the noise.

“No.”


	9. the relicts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A thing that has survived from an earlier period or in a primitive form. _archaic._ A widow.

I.

Slow… Intimate. Just as Raina had foreseen.

May doesn’t reach her in time. She’s dying in her own right. And by the time Fool pries the gun from her hands, it’s too late. Two shots to match the first.

Jemma rages at the wheel.

She knows she wanted this. His blood on her hands. Her name on his lips. His body at her feet. Deposed. _Dying_. She’s longed for this… She has to believe her sisters will understand.

“Take the wheel.”

He wastes no time following instruction. She rises from the body, steadily making for the back of the Horse.

II.

Her screams leave a taste as bitter on her tongue as the red on her dress… The fabric runs, same as the blood from his body. She rips the mask from him, ignoring the curve of his lips as they frame his bloodied teeth.

“Those for me, Precious?” He reaches for her tears. “What, did you think I was immortal?”

Her hands tremble over him as she tries to stave the bleeding. She’s failing. He’s _dying_.

 _His_ hands still. “This could have been our wedding night, you know. Remember, Jem?”

She offers nothing to her dying husband. Her dead husband.

III.

Raina looks on as she enters the Rig. Barbara in the wind. _Alive_. Her husband’s blood staining her sister’s skin… Dying, ever slowly.

“You saw this,” he accuses.

She doesn’t deny anything, only there for her sister.

“ _Chroí…_ ”

Her touch now level, Jemma drags her finger along a bullet wound.

“You don’t speak to her… You don’t even _look_ at her,” she snaps, her voice rising over his cries. “You’re bleeding out. Focus on that.”

“The desert’s made you cold.”

“Maybe so.” She shrugs, meeting his gaze for the first time all day. “But our absence has made you weak.”

IV.

She doesn’t know what to do.

“Keep her awake,” someone urges. “Keep her talking.”

Skye remains frozen, her ears ringing from the shock.

Carter. Jemma. _Barbara_. Kara… And now May.

“You can’t leave us.”

“This is new...” She gasps out a pained breath, but wears a defiant smile. “You’re not used to this… To being _denied_ …”

“No.”

“I was the same...” May confesses, reaching for her. “The same when I was a Wife.”

Her eyes widen. “What?”

That’s when she hears them.

One shot. Two more before her sister starts screaming, she can’t say who.

“He’s dead!”

Then nothing. Silence.

V.

The wind beats her face and the sting leaves a terrible chill. There are so many drugs coursing through her system, it’s the only sensation she can properly name.

The cold winds blowing. No pain.

No… There’s pain. She feels it in her blood. It’s just not physical.

She hears the shots fired. She hears the screams…

 _Jemma_.

A tear rolls down her cheek, knowing she could never reach her in time. She can’t even move, too scared to try.

When the screaming stops, she feels a warmth surrounding her… Fragile fingers wrapped around her broken frame.

“I’ve got you.”

VI.

She curls herself around her sister, shielding her from the elements.

“I’ve got you,” she promises. “Stay with me.”

Barbara only moans her response.

Neither look back at the raging hell behind them.

“Kara,” she rasps desperately. “ _Ward_ … Is he dead?”

“He’ll be there soon.”

She shakes in her arms.

“They’re safe,” she swears. “ _You’re_ safe _—_ ”

“Where is she? I need her…” Barbara grips her arm, desperate for her wife. “ _Jemma_...”

The words are dry in her throat and it’s all she can do not to scream… They’re absolute torture on their way out.

“ _Safe_ … She’s safe.”

She falls apart.

VII.

He used to love those eyes… Now they linger too long on his dying corpse.

“There’s nothing you can do for him now,” she says. “He’s gone.”

“No.” She knits her brows with the concentration of his strategists. “Not yet… I need her _here_. She should be here for this.”

“You need to let him go.”

Her nimble fingers shake like faulty wiring in an engine.

Raina takes her sister’s hands in her own. She holds them steady. It’s a long while before she speaks.

“Let me. Please.”

Jemma releases him, collapsing against her sister’s skirts in a broken sob.

VIII.

Red.  

Hunter watches the sun race for the horizon, same as the parties behind them.

Red in the flames. In the ashes. In the decay… So many dead and none of them his own.

So much blood. Enough for ten Universal Donors on a pike.

Red.

There’s that color where the whites should be. On their clothes. In their eyes.

His gaze returns to the Brides on the hood.

Their fingers lock, knuckles whitening in a death grip to keep each other safe. To keep each other _sane_.

They haven’t lost themselves to the madness of this world. They’re alive.

IX.

_He’s dead… He’s dead._

When the words play themselves out, she realizes she’s the only one left. Through death or separation, she finds herself alone. Raina takes Carter’s legacy seeds with her and Fitz remains locked on the wheel.

May shakes in her lap.

“You need to...”

She looks down at her, wiping the sweat from her brow.

“ _You_ need to save your strength.” It’s a shaky command at best. May shuts her eyes to it. “We’re nearly there. Hang on.”

It’s quiet after that. The remaining Vuvalini held her by the shoulder.

“See to your sisters. We have her.”

X.

She watches the scene unfold on shaky footing. Her sister’s hands covered in blood. Another buried in her lap while their husband exsanguinates in front of them. The first and last of his Wives holding on for dear life.

Ward coughs some more, struggling to form his final testament.

“My girls… What more could a dying man ask for.”

“Shut up,” Raina seethes. “No more words.”

“She told me to come. To watch him die.”

“May?” The name centers her. “How is she?”

It’s a loaded question and she ignores it. She only stares at him as he bleeds out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the long wait. Last year was a trip for my mental health, but I've had a much softer time these last few months.


	10. the end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They remain far beyond the reach of man, shrouded in the grace of the divine. Grown. Endless. Victorious. Rough. Free.

I.

Their husband chokes on his final breath. The silence is deafening when it’s over.

Skye is the first to speak.

“Leave him,” she says. “We have to get to May.”

The Fool hears this and grunts from his place at the wheel.

“You,” he points, gesturing towards Jemma. “Drive fast. I’ll help that one.”

Raina calls for her. “Jemma…”

She nods but isn’t moved, her eyes never leaving her wife. Skye pulls her close.

“It’s time.”

“I know,” she whispers.

He watches from the rear view mirror. His eyes go to the Rig behind him and the lone War Boy.

II.

Countless brothers fallen for a cause with no merit. For a God without dominion. A tyrant with no pulse.

Those who survived would never accept the new world order. The Imperator would be branded a traitor, and Fitz a defected accessory. They would be charged and dealt with as such. And the sisters…

No.

He would lay down his life before they were ever touched again.

A half life is a cursed life. If he has to die, he was taking everyone down with him. Everyone who was left.

It would be historic. A death fitting for the Fury Road.

III.

Hunter sees the War Boy, alone in his thoughts. They lock eyes and he smiles of all things. A small thing in the old world. A rarity in the new. He nods his assent, having decided to end it all.

Metal marries flame as the War Boy crashes at the pass. He watches the scene unfold, car after car. The destruction is epic.

The Horse picks up speed, driving deeper into the wasteland until they could be sure. And then it was over. They were free. No war parties. No survivors. Just the women of the wastes and their seeds.

IV.

May is brought inside once Ward was removed. Barbara, too. Hunter carries him away. No one asks where.

Their liberator lays between them, rasping out her every breath.

“Why is she making that noise?” Skye demands.

“She’s pumping air into her chest cavity,” Hartley murmurs. “She’s collapsing her lungs. One breath at a time.”

He palms at the surrounding area for a knife to use.

“I am _so_ sorry,” he mutters before puncturing her side with the blade. She cries out. “I _know_...I know...”

She pulls him closer with what little strength she has left. “Home. Get them… _Home_.”

V.

“She’s exsanguinated. Drained all the blood.”

He works swiftly against time, dragging his Blood Bag needle from God knows where.

“Keep her talking,” he says.

“May…”

His brow furrows. “It’s not retracting… Hold it up, hold it up. It’s all right. There you go.” He feeds his blood into her arm, passing off an end to a Sister. “Okay. There you go.” He supports her head as the blood passes between them.

His fingers graze her cheeks as he tries to keep her alert.

“Lance. _Hunter_ … My name is Hunter…” He blinks away the tears that pool. “That’s my name.”

VI.

Barbara settles deeper in the crux of Jemma’s neck as she speaks.

“I never stopped hoping,” she whispers. “ _Praying_ … That you were alive.”

“It was reckless _—_ ”

“ _Don’t_. You’re here now. You’re safe,” she trembles. “You’re with me.”

“He’s dead.”

It’s not a question. She knows.

She nods, so still against her wife. “He’s dead, Barbara.” Jemma presses her lips against her crown.

“No…” She’s so quiet. So determined. “Not Barbara… Not anymore.”

“Not Barbara,” she echoes.

“My name is Bobbi.”

“Bobbi.”

She hums. “ _Bobbi_.”

The rest of the drive is spent tangled in each other’s arms, bound by the silence.

VIII.

Kara stares out the window.

“Will you read to me?”

Raina looks on her sister and then back to the horizon. “There’s no scripture for miles.”

“Pray for me, then.”

She nods, never denying her.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek... for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Am I blessed?”

Raina runs her fingers through Kara’s long tresses.

“Of course, my love.”

VIII.

Skye takes May in her hand with a careful hold. Desperate to the touch, but never enough to further her pain.

“You saved us.”

“You saved yourselves,” she murmurs, remaining on the floor. “I played my part. Did what I had to do.”

Words of vengeance and spite die on her lips. That life was gone. It was over. He couldn’t touch them now… He would never touch them again.

“Thank you.” Skye brings her fingers to her lips, kissing them lightly. “Thank you… Melinda.”

She shuts her eyes to the name as a tear rolls down her cheek. _Hers_.

IX.

The Horse rolls past the outskirts of the Citadel and the Wretched who follow.

They barely make it to the platform before the Breakman orders them to stop.

“Brake!” he shouts from his station. They halt their moves to lower the lift. “Reveal yourself!”

Hunter opens the door, hands raised as he makes his way to the hood of the car. He lowers himself to the veiled corpse of their former leader.

“It’s Immortan Ward.”

Murmurs amplify as the crowd grows restless.

“The Immortan is dead,” they say. “Ward is dead!”

He dumps the body and they devour the remains.

X.

Hunter collects May from the car, supporting her weight as they stand victorious. The sisters follow, both old and new.

“May!”

The War Pups can only stare in awe at the scene unfolding. Carnage turned to support in a blink.

“Let them up!” the people demand. “Let them up!”

The Pups look to each other before breaking for the levers, lowering the lift of their own accord. The Horse drives on and the people delight, screaming their praises.

The lift rises. The waters fall. And amidst the chaos, Hunter leaves a world not meant for him. This mad, mad world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my pride and joy. It's been an absolute pleasure to share this with you all and thank you for indulging this.


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